Shappire's music is beautiful, indeed. Rarely is a poet able to show us such tragedy and compel us to read on. Never once did I question her ability to guide me through the experience of these poems. What a tremendous success!!


Compelling, vivid poetry born of the Black experience.   February 4, 2000
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Sapphire's Black Wings & Blind Angels provides the poetry of black writer Sapphire, which examines the black experience in America and the effects of racism and urban violence. A compelling account packed with vivid free verse images.


Black Wings & Blind Angels is a brutal reading   June 16, 2010
D. A. Holiday (Albany, New York United States)
This is a disturbing collection of prose from Sapphire. I am giving her a high rating because I enjoy her work, despite it being raw and honest (especially in this collection). I don't mind the profanity and the honesty that she depends on to narrate her telling, it is just that as a male I am a little sensitive to this kind of writing.

I realize that violence (against women) is what Sapphire is trying to relate to her readers/audience, but she forgets, I think, that an audience that might be too young to be reading this material might interpret the subject matter differently than a more mature audience. I read a lot of poetry and prose, and even moderate a prison workshop (and even I would not expose inmates to much of this material), and I even write my own "serious/honest/raw" prose, but I had to put the book aside at times because of the shocking text. And, is that what the writer is doing in some of the "Gorilla in the Mist" pieces? Striving to shock us. To disgust us. More importantly, can this text be read/performed aloud? I would think not.

Many of the pieces are too brutal to the eyes and senses and that takes away from the underlying message that I think Sapphire wants to make or leave us as reader and audience with. In short, I think she goes just a little overboard with a number of these pieces.

I like Sapphire's work. I own and read American Dreams (first) and Push (aka Precious) and some of the Gorilla Mist subject matter was in American Dreams, but I wasn't expecting the author/writer to be as brutal with language and text to get her message across.

If you're a fan, give the book a try, just proceed with caution, and, certainly, be cautious in allowing younger readers near this material.


Sapphire a poetic jewel!   January 18, 2000
Paul. (CowTown, Ct.)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Sapphire's poetry is raw, rough and powered. She layers metaphor and creates images with a jazzy and urban tone. From her painful life she spawned this book, a masterpiece of emotion, as another hit to the poetic community, which is still rocking from "American Dreams."